Holiday apartment in Londonderry: City Walls, Museums and Nature

Londonderry combines an exceptional history with distinctive buildings, museums and expansive landscapes. The Derry Walls form the only completely walled city in Ireland. They were built between 1613 and 1618. Today, the city walls can be explored on foot along a circular route of about one mile. They also include a collection of cannons whose origins are precisely known; many of these cannons were used during the two sieges in the 17th century.

History and Culture

Several museums explore the city’s past from different perspectives. The Museum of Free Derry in Derry’s Bogside presents a multimedia exhibition on the civil rights movement and the city’s early history of conflict, including Bloody Sunday. Its archive contains more than 25,000 individual items relating to this period of the city’s history. The Tower Museum houses the exhibitions “The Story of Derry” and the “Derry Girls Experience”.

The buildings within the city walls also lead through various historical periods. Saint Columb’s Cathedral has stood at its distinctive location within Derry’s famous city walls since 1633. Derry’s Guildhall is a Gothic Revival building that was originally constructed in 1887. It presents an immersive experience featuring personal stories, images and the poet’s voice; a separate exhibition also explains how the Plantation shaped the city’s history. The Blue Coat School Heritage Centre tells the story of the First Derry Presbyterian Church, which has been at the heart of its community since the 17th century.

Visitors who want to experience Derry in the context of its visible urban history can join guided Walled City Tours. They take visitors through Derry and cover the city walls, murals, monuments and buildings.

Nature and Activities

In County Londonderry, Roe Valley Country Park reveals another side of the region. The park offers impressive riverside views and woodland trails. At Roe Valley Country Park, the Green Lane Museum displays 19th- and 20th-century artefacts relating to the history of the Roe Valley, including rural ways of life, local trades and the linen industry.

Roe Valley Country Park also offers opportunities for salmon and trout fishing, canoeing, climbing and orienteering. A circular trail of about 3.6 kilometres starts and ends at the car park on Dogleap Road. The approximate length is just as much a part of the trail’s character as its clearly marked starting and finishing point.

Creggan Country Park in County Londonderry covers 100 acres and features three freshwater lakes, woodland, hedgerows and an activity centre. It offers water sports and other outdoor activities, including canoeing, kayaking and raft building, as well as rainbow trout fishing.

Food and Local Character

The Walled City Brewery offers a hands-on experience of making micro-brewed beer, followed by a tasting of ten different beers. When it opened in 2015, it was the first new craft brewery in Derry-Londonderry in a century. The same building houses a fully operational brewery and an adjoining restaurant.

Getting There

Derry-Londonderry can be reached by train from Belfast and by bus from Dublin and Belfast. This means that different travel routes from the two cities named are part of the regional transport connections.

More Destinations

More destinations complement the selection: Tyrone, Dungannon And South Tyrone, Antrim, Magherafelt, Newtownabbey, Fermanagh, Derry and Lisburn and Castlereagh.

To the overarching travel overview: Northern Ireland.